Snowball, a Universal Inbox for All of Your Messages

Snapchat. Facebook Messenger. Hangouts. Many of us deal with these chat apps and more on a daily basis, but having to navigate through multiple interfaces to send messages through each is, to put it lightly, less than optimal.

Snowball, a startup backed by Google Ventures, attempts to minimize the juggling by displaying messages from various apps in a single, e-mail inbox-like interface. Accessible via a floating icon which evokes Facebook’s Chat Heads, a pop-up list of your messages, ordered chronologically, makes keeping track of conversations across platforms a little bit easier.

The app is not without its limitations, though. Snowball does not plug into messaging apps directly, as tapping on a message to respond will kick you back to the associated app. Basically, Snowball does not really serve any other purpose than consolidating a few notifications right now. That may change in the future, but any advanced functionality would require the unlikely cooperation of third parties.

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Gideon Waxfarb

Does it actually work reliably for Facebook messenger notifications? I get notifications for maybe 1 out of 5 messages I get on any Android device I use with their native app. I’m about ready to put a bounty on this issue.

Can ANYBODY tell me: like fb messenger and this app is it supposed to be on the side of the home screen. It does not with my action launcher so I’m questioning if this app and fb messenger work as intended. Both apps do pull up (on the side) when I’m in other apps though. (wtf)

Marc

Works fine with Action Launcher. I docked Snowball to the right edge of the display and can pull out either Snowball or the Quickpage.

DJyoSNOW

OK then I’ll have to fuss with it when I’m not at work. (note 3) also strange fb messenger reacts the same way never shows but when I go to use apps it’s then on the screen.

Xperia Z3V announced.
And it does have a Verizon logo on the front top.
Wow. Way to completely screw up a beautiful looking device. F……..you Verizon.
$200 on contract.
$200 off bundle if you buy with Z2 Tablet.
Qi wireless charging!

M3D1T8R

Meanwhile, the Sony / Verizon launch is happening now, with no coverage from DL.

Trillian does mostly older services… MSN, AIM, ICQ, XMPP, Yahoo! … Facebook and Google are included.. But no Twitter, WhatsApp, Snapchat, WeChat, Line, Slack, and the default SMS app. Which are the ones people use today.. Either way.. this doesn’t really do anything besides bring notifications to one place. you still need all the apps on your phone..

monkeybutts

lol if you still need the apps on your phone just let the default notifications do their work.

El_Big_CHRIS

isnt this kinda what BBM did with hub? but with less features?

Robert

I downloaded this yesterday, and I really liked it at first, but unfortunately your “snowball box” (yikes) gets very cluttered and they don’t have an option to delete all. If they add that I think I’ll like it. Kind of brings me back to my beloved curve 8320 days.

Tyler Durden

Snowball is also….

El_Big_CHRIS

I know of it because of clerks 1. I was like eww

Mike Aurin

Imagine a world where this unification took off and “snowball me” became as common as “text me”.

trixnkix637

The cat on the Simpsons?

Stewie

the cat on Stuart little !

bogy25

…..is passing cum back and forth between two or more people’s mouths! Whooo Hooooo!!!

This appeared on Reddit yesterday. The top comment eluded to why this app isn’t quite up to snuff. The top comment was from a developer working on something similar. I would link to it but for some reason they block Reddit at work, silly.

Edit: I think it was the notification consolidation you mention above.